Monday, September 15, 2014

Painting in the moment

After many months of painting (a few hundred) faces, she is my new favorite. Hours of practice have taught valuable lessons - like letting go while still holding a paint brush. An exhilarating freedom, a precise imprecision, which I've admired in many works of art. Finding the truth in my voice while residing in that place called 'flow.'There is much to be said for living in the moment, no worry, anxiety, guilt or regret. I watch a squirrel hiding a walnut on our back porch. Hear the kids playing next door, showing off their first kindergarten drawings with their wild imaginations and plans for who they will become. Then passing through a vibrant downtown on a post-card perfect drive to the barn, such gratification as the foal is now filly, albeit still close to mom.So why don't we all adopt this way of being? Ask and most adults rattle off the exponential reasons why they are so exhausted, splintered from busy busy days, dealing with the hectic that is life. Forward motion, accomplishment, plans, crises, how will they manage... a 'normal' way of life. And there is always the hovering, impending doom streaming from the 24/7 media. Then there are (so many) people like me. Living with a chronic illness - no wheelchair, brace or special-needs apparatus - which means I have an invisible illness. It will progress, has left permanent damage and on days when I feel really really bad, for no outwardly apparent reason I lack the strength to hope, or sink into another cycle of grief. For more than ten years I have been redefining my self in a way that is just off stage, away from bright light. Making the transition from a doing to a being. And most days I succeed, having become compassionate and understanding with an awareness that often startles me.I have a home, wonderful family and lots of art supplies... why would I grieve? An unexpected deja-vu seeing the ones wearing heels and put-together all the way up to the styled hair. Focused, decision-making, purposeful. A backward glance across a decade reveals a different me: optimistic, sharp, talented creative director, business owner, with avocations like showing horses, writing fiction. Leasing new cars every two years in a wardrobe that, while not trendy, was a true artistic rendering of who I was. No power-wielding corporate maniac, just a woman deriving immense satisfaction from doing what I loved. Do I miss that person? Wouldn't you?

Now, aside from my tiny stash of going-out clothes I am repetitive. T-shirt splatted with paint, sweats and hair knotted in a bun for so long... I cannot remember my last trip to the stylist. Do I bother to shave my legs or paint my toenails? In that case, no need for make-up. This is what happens during the transition from daily (public) activities to maybe once a week. And there are those who innocently envy my lifestyle. But it is not and never will be a choice.

Before illness I did not paint, so this is my choice, one of my silver linings. Art. And closer connections with fewer people holds such meaning... rather than an active social life. Another choice: examining life rather than hearing it whoosh past in a roar of distractions.Emily Dickinson wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all." What does all of this mean? That there is always hope along this journey, despite the lapses and deep pits that are not, in a way that is unrecognizable to those whose lives are not impacted by chronic illness. We are a community of believers, grit and survival, even managing to thrive. Like the magic that is making art. If my hope is dormant today, in the larger view, through the silence, pain, aloneness and inability to be understood, I suppose I really do not ever stop.

5 comments:

Thank goodness for art and caring thoughtful friends who understand some of what we're going through.My life slowed down...almost stopped when our son was killed in 1999...everything took on different meaning and order and then health issues again adjusted the what's really important list.Bless you this moment and all other's too.Your painting is wonderful!oxo

What I believe, based on my travels through space and time, is that we are miraculously restored to ourselves. We may not have known we were absent and went about filling our days as you describe, not a bad life at all. It is only when unexpected rooms open within us, when we find we are falling in love nearly every every with a new artist, a new form, or realizing the beauty of pink that we see we have become wide where before we had been innocently narrow. The gradual dawning of this awareness can leave one more or less permanently dazed. Awe and gratitude seem the appropriate responses. xo

patti, this is a beautiful post... i read, i contemplated, and what came to me is that the well dressed, hair styled patti would never have been able to paint this face. she would not have been able to access this raw beauty; this raw talent.

i love what marylinn wrote. yes! i could not agree more! we can now see the ISness of ourselves. or *more* of the Isness. it keeps unfolding...

you have no idea how big i smile to know that you are a fellow face painter.

Awesome post. I get you, I feel your words. I can sympathize because I am there as well, and like Patty S., and you, I too have had to find a "new norm". But its who we are, right? Who we are NOW. It's all good. It has to be. (Geesh, what a liar I am..LOL) Big hugs to you. Congrats on your art show win and sale. I never would have thought the chin was a happy accident. It seems to belong that way.

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The renovated attic in our old brick four-square has been a haven since an auto-immune illness interrupted life as I knew it. I embarked upon this journey according to the old saying that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, or, well, art. I took that to heart and I've been painting more days than not and I've appreciated each step of this journey - the breath, substance and core of my soul. I've been at it long enough to have acquired the gift of diving in, headfirst, no longer any fear of the blank canvas. Though writing and photography have been lifelong passions I have an infinite appreciation for process, painting, discovery.

My hours in the studio answer this question: What happens when one life ends? Just like the caterpillar at that stage of the journey, you sprout new wings.

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There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.